The television industry calls them cord cutters — a generation that has cancelled its expensive cable subscription in favor of more affordable alternatives like Netflix and Hulu. Some use antennas to pick up over-the-air network channels, while a growing number watches no TV at all.

In 2007, 2 million households had neither subscribed to a television service nor received programming via antenna, according to Nielsen. By 2013, that number had grown to 5 million. Experts say the subscription television industry became saturated in 2011. A TDG study found that nearly 101 million U.S. households subscribed to television at the industry's peak in 2011, but the number would fall below 95 million in 2017. Cable and satellite subscriptions dropped by 250,000 in 2013 — the first year-to-year decline in the industry’s history.

In order to reach the coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic, networks are having to come up with creative ways to get their brands and programs in front of an increasingly-disinterested audience. HBO Go and Showtime Anytime allow for the streaming of the premium channels’ content on a variety of devices — including smartphones — which is key. In order to reach cord-cutters, networks must think beyond the TV. And none of the big four are doing it particularly well, in my estimation.

Last week, ABC (which is owned by Disney) announced it has struck a deal with Snapchat, in hopes of drumming up interest among millennials around its most popular shows. By utilizing Snapchat’s Discover feature, ABC will produce a series of three- to five-minute episodes of “Watch Party: The Bachelor,” each available for 24 hours on the app. The episodes — essentially a recap of the previous night’s episode of “The Bachelor” — will feature “celebrities, comedians, super-fans and infamous Bachelors and Bachelorettes,” according to the companies.

Snapchat boasts more than 150 million daily users, according to the company, and the lion’s share of them are between the ages of 12 and 34.

The idea behind the Watch Party episodes is simple: generate enough interest in The Bachelor to pique the curiosity of younger viewers and compel them to watch the show.

“We’ve been exploring ways to tell stories on mobile, and Snapchat was a very exciting canvas for us to work on,” John Frelinghuysen, executive VP of digital media strategy and business development for Disney-ABC TV, told Variety last week.

In August, NBCUniversal struck a similar deal with Snapchat. The network has since produced episodic, original content from The Voice, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live for the platform.

ESPN, Comedy Central and MTV also create original content for Snapchat’s Discover platform.

The degree to which Snapchat is able to actually drive young viewers to these programs is not entirely known; it’s still early in the game, and the numbers are not readily available. But one must suspect that ABC/Disney liked what they heard when they sat down with Snapchat to hammer out the deal.

Whether Snapchat is or isn’t the answer, the networks are going to have to do something to maintain their vitality. A 2011 report by Credit Suisse predicted that cord-cutters — or “cord-nevers,” who grew up accustomed to watching shows online — were unlikely to ever return to paying for television.

The phenomenon is often compared to telephone land-lines. Experts predicted that younger people who initially resisted them would eventually break down and get one. By and large, that did not happen. Millions of 18- to 34-year-olds have only mobile phones.

Unless the television networks can find creative ways to get in front of millennials, the road ahead could be incredibly bumpy.